Banking unions await meetings with PSD, CDS, Bloco and Livre

Six banking unions – Mais Sindicato, the Portuguese Financial Sector Workers' Union (SBN), the National Union of Banking, Insurance and Technology Workers (SBC), the CGD Group Companies Workers' Union (STEC), the Independent Banking Union (SIB) and the Financial Activity Workers' Union (Sintaf) – sent a diagnosis of the banking sector to the various parliamentary blocs and the President of the Republic at the end of June. But at that time it could only be received by the PS, Chega, PCP and IL benches, with PSD, CDS, Bloco and Livre remaining for September.

“We are still waiting for a date to be set for a hearing with the Labor Committee of the Assembly of the Republic,” the unions told the newspaper Giornale Económico.

The union structure adds: “We also received at the Presidency of the Republic two advisors (Maria João Ruela and Fatima Fonseca), who were responsible for delivering the diagnosis to the President of the Republic.”

Among the problems identified in the diagnosis presented to Parliament and the Presidency of the Republic was the conclusion that the bank employees, numbering about 90,000, have a heavy workload that leads to bankruptcies. Fatigueand pressure to do extra work without corresponding wage incentives and with “hints that they may appear on the list of workers to be laid off in the upcoming restructuring.”

There are also wage increases below the rate of inflation and the risks posed by artificial intelligence.

“Employees increasingly multitask, customers interact with financial institutions through different channels (branch, phone, email, app) and performing a variety of tasks can lead to significant stress and fatigue, involuntary errors and even difficulty performing – conditions that return as burnout,” the banking unions point out.

When asked about the rationale for transferring the diagnosis of the mainly private sector (the only public bank is Caixa Geral de Depósitos) to the legislature and the Presidency of the Republic, the president of Mais Sindicato, António Fonseca, explained to Económico that the goal was to “sensitize” political bodies about the problem of bank employees. Because, he says, the focus was on other professional classes, police officers, doctors, nurses, teachers, but bank employees “were forgotten.”

In fact, just on Tuesday, the unions affiliated with the General Confederation of Workers – MES, SBN and SBC – announced that they had taken steps with the government so that pensioners from the banking sector would be treated “like everyone else”. That is, low-income bank pensioners would receive an additional bonus in October. This came after Prime Minister Luis Montenegro announced that pensioners with low pensions would receive an additional bonus in October.

“The case for banking is fair,” says Antonio Fonseca, recalling that in the past 30 years, bankers have ceased to be a professional group earning “above average” and become a professional group earning “below average.”

The president of Mis Syndicato says it is necessary to make MPs and the public aware of the fact that bank employees are “not special”, recalling that the starting salaries for those entering the banking sector are currently around 900 to 1,000 euros, which explains why some banks complain about the difficulty of hiring and even resort to young people who do not have university degrees.

In fact, Caixa Geral de Depósitos CEO Paulo Macedo has spoken about talent retention in several forums, saying: “It is mostly candidates who interview us, not us who interview them. It is employers who interview students.”

However, the problem of low salaries, especially for recent graduates, does not only affect banking. According to the CGTP, in Portugal, 62% of employees have a gross salary of up to 1,000 euros. At the end of last year, it is estimated that 745,000 workers received the national minimum wage, which currently has a net value of 729.80 euros. One in ten workers is in poverty (data from the National Institute of Statistics and the concept of poverty).

“At the same time, some of the largest economic groups in our country, including the five largest banks, achieved results of 32.5 thousand euros per day in the first six months of 2024,” the CGTP recently pointed out in a line clearly in line with the banking unions.

In a sector where more than 90% of bank employees belong to unions, banking unions (not only those affiliated with the CGT, but also others, specifically the Union of Banking Technical Employees) have a significant social power and make this known in collective bargaining.

Unions continue to talk about “huge profits” of which “a small part is shared with the workers” in the banking sector.

That is why the six unions in the financial sector, which represent more than 90,000 bank employees in Portugal, both active and retired, have decided to publicly express their growing concerns about the reality that workers face when carrying out their duties.

“The working conditions and challenges faced by the banking sector require concrete action to ensure the dignity and well-being of workers. The central and crucial importance of the financial sector for the country’s economic and financial stability requires reporting on the situation, which affects not only workers but also the population and companies,” say the banking unions affiliated with the General Federation of Workers.

“The reaction of the parties was very good and they showed their solidarity with the difficulties that the banking class has been experiencing in recent years,” says Miss Sindicato to Giornale Economico, after presenting the diagnosis of the current situation to Parliament.

What do unions demand from parliament?

With the development of banking activity and the requirements of the new labor reality in the sector, “there is a need to amend the Labor Law and thus the Collective Labor Agreement (ACT) (which banks do not accept yet), specifically with regard to implementing digitization and using digital platforms supported by artificial intelligence to clarify procedures.”

They noted in the document that “the current situation has allowed for interpretations and biases of the law by employers.”

“It is necessary to clarify the concept of mandatory training, as defined by the Labor Code (currently 40 hours per year) and the concept of organizational training (MIFID, CH and insurance), in particular with regard to indirect training.” – The face-to-face model of learning, specifying the period during which training can be carried out via electronic means, as well as payment for training hours outside normal working hours, in particular within the scope of the employer’s duties (provided for in Article 127. § 1 of the CT) and its administrative authority, during which period its employees must participate in training activities organized by the enterprise”, the unions argue.

They add: “If it is decided that this engagement should take place outside of working hours, payment must be guaranteed, in accordance with the terms stipulated by law – which is not the case in most cases.”

The unions, together with Parliament, consider it necessary to “ensure that every worker is informed, at all times, of the number of hours of compulsory training he has already completed, in order to guarantee the payment of work credits in the event of leaving the company”.

Another appeal points to the need to define the terms and criteria to be adopted to measure all working time, in accordance with the rights granted by the Charter and the European Working Time Directive. “Currently, there are credit institutions that do not yet have a reliable system for recording working time, to calculate all working time and to determine overtime.”

“Although all establishments currently have the proven technological capacity to create and operate a computer application so that each worker can record their daily working time, in accordance with the Labour Code and the Labour Act, this has not been done. More seriously, when it does exist, it does not comply with the law, which has already led to a complaint being filed with the ACT.”

They concluded that “given the situation described and the importance of the financial sector, the unions call for concerted action by bank managers and policymakers to address these issues in a fair and effective manner.”